As disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-343360, internal combustion engine systems provided with hydrogen generation capability are known. Specifically, the system includes a mechanism to generate a hydrogen rich gas and dehydrogenation products such as naphthalene from a hydrogenated fuel containing organic hydrides such as Decalin as well as a hydrogen engine which runs using the generated hydrogen rich gas as fuel.
In the system disclosed in the above-mentioned publication, while the hydrogen engine is operating, the hydrogenated fuel is separated into a hydrogen rich gas and dehydrogenation products by utilizing the heat generated by the operation. Then, only the hydrogen rich gas is extracted and used as fuel. The remaining dehydrogenation products are collected into a recovery tank. The recovery tank has a discharge pipe through which the dehydrogenation products can be discharged to the outside.
As described above, this prior art system can generate by itself hydrogen for use as fuel. It is therefore possible to realize a hydrogen-fueled system without having to install a high pressure hydrogen tank or the like.
Including the above-mentioned document, the applicant is aware of the following documents as a related art of the present invention.
[Patent Document 1]
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-343360
[Patent Document 2]
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-255503
[Patent Document 3]
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7-63128
By the way, for an internal combustion engine to output large power, it is effective to supply both gasoline and hydrogen to the internal combustion engine. This function can be implemented by, for example, applying the above-mentioned prior art system to a gasoline-fueled ordinary internal combustion engine.
In the above-mentioned prior art system, however, dehydrogenation products which are by-products of generating hydrogen rich gas are discharged for disposal. Thus, if the system is simply applied to an ordinary internal combustion engine, dehydrogenation products will have to be discharged frequently, requiring the user to do troublesome maintenance/management operations.